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See me jumping up and down? I have three of my favorite people on my blog! Not just three talented, amazing authors (who write about murder — double great!) but three wonderful, down-to-earth women who I like and admire.

JT with her cats, Jordan and Jameson (Or is it Jameson and Jordan? I can’t tell them apart!)

Not to play favorites (because like my children, it’s hard to pick a favorite author), but I’ve known J.T. almost as long as I’ve been published. Her debut thriller ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS came out in 2007, a year after my debut novel. And she asked me — ME! — then totally an unknown to read and blurb her book. I remember reading it on the plane from Sacramento to RT in Florida and being completely and totally hooked. We met for the first time at the first Thrillerfest, in Phoenix, AZ, where I met some of my favorite people in the business — that’s the weekend I also met Toni McGee Causey, who you all know from her time here as a contributor to MSW.

But I digress (surprise, surprise!)

When I heard that the Terrific Trio were back with a new book, I had to have them here on Murder She Writes. I’m not one for boring interviews (yawn) so I asked them a few fun questions and I hope you enjoy their answers.

Okay, over it … but truly, this is an evocative, mysterious cover that certainly makes me want to grab a copy!

I’m thrilled to have Lisa back again this year blogging about her latest novel. Lisa Black has spent over 20 years in forensic science, first at the coroner’s office in Cleveland Ohio and now as a certified latent print examiner and CSI at a Florida police dept. Which pretty much means she knows a lot about her genre. 🙂 Lisa is a New York Times bestselling authors, and her books have been translated into six languages. Plus, one of her books has been optioned for a possible film or television series. Congrats!

I’m glad Lisa could return to MSW to share more about how UNPUNISHED came to be …

In That Darkness, forensic specialist Maggie Gardiner investigates, among other things, the murder of a young girl found draped over a grave in Cleveland’s historic East Ninth Street Cemetery. It wounds Maggie to think that the young teen could go missing without anyone calling the cops, filing a report, or looking for her in any other way. Her fingerprints are not in the criminal database and Maggie discovers that there are precious few other ways to track down the identity of one lost girl.

One of the nets she can cast, however, is called NamUs—the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. It came into existence after 9/11 and is a national centralized repository of information, separated into three distinct databases :

Boy it’s great to be back here at Murder She Writes. Thanks, Allison for hosting me today.

From Allison: I am THRILLED that Deb is back at Murder She Writes … Deb is one of my favorite writers and favorite people. If you haven’t read the Lucky O’Toole series, start now!

So, what’s new? Well, for starters, a new Lucky book hit the virtual shelves November 20th, LUCKY BREAK, the sixth novel in the series.

Six. I’m a piker when it comes to Allison, but I’m getting there—which surprises the heck out of me.

When I penned the first in the series, WANNA GET LUCKY?, I thought that was the only good story idea I would ever have! Write another? Much less six??? Nope, not happening. Then it did. It’s funny how you get to the end writing one story and the next is sitting there, beckoning, like a blond on a motorcycle. Climb aboard, let me take you for a ride. Never could resist a man on a motorcycle… or an interesting character begging me to tell her story.

BILL SYKEN: I wanted to write about a punter because he is both an insider and an outsider. He is part of a team but not entirely of it, performing one simple and specialized task. If his team plays a perfect game, he does nothing at all. This means he can stand back and see the broader universe, and he can also be wishing he could do more—which helps explain why he steps up to right a wrong when his universe is disturbed.

MARK: The punter is the forgotten guy on the team. J.C. doesn’t even know Gallow’s name. Is that common?

BILL: J.C. not recognizing Nick is in part a riff on a likely apocryphal story about Rickey Henderson not recognizing John Olerud after the former Mets teammates were reunited in Seattle.

But punters are also sometimes derided as not being real players, and this incident draws on that as well. When Jeff Feagles set a record for consecutive games played, pundits argued about whether the record should count because it was set by a punter and not a regular player.

MARK: Freddy calls football “a Ponzi scheme of caring.” Do you believe that?

BILL: A little. From the players’ perspective, money is more of a motivation than they allow in their public pronouncements, which are more about winning. And while fans really, really care about their teams—I am an Eagles guy and I am currently inhaling the dribs of information that trickle out of their training camp—I know that if the football games somehow disappeared, I would carry on just fine (especially if the Sixers stopped stinking).

Whenever a player is seriously hurt, people talk about how this reminds you what is really important in life. But even as fans scream at their TVs about the latest interception or overthought play call, that awareness is always running in the background. For most of us.

MARK: Who are some of your favorite crime fiction authors, and how does their influence show in this book?

BILL: My favorite crime fiction authors include Patricia Highsmith (creator of Tom Ripley) and Donald Westlake (creator of master thief Parker). Even though those characters are both criminals, they approached their tasks with the ruthlessness and single-mindedness that is shared by great competitive athletes. Nick Gallow is a detective and not a criminal, but I tried to give him a similar mentality to Parker, in particular. Or at least an aspiration to that mentality.

MARK: Is this book more an indictment of football or a fan letter to it?

BILL: It’s both. I was really trying to describe this setting, more than take a position on it. To honestly describe football you must acknowledge the damage that is does, particularly to its players. But you also must recognize the excitement of this country’s most popular sport. Americans are competitive about an awful lot, and football feeds into that very successfully.

MARK: Are any of the characters based on real people?

BILL: No, although some began with a seed of reality. For instance, several years ago I briefly interviewed Julius Peppers, the notably press-shy All-Pro defensive end who was then with the Panthers. That encounter, after taking a few spins through the fictionalization machine, helped inspire a character in the book. (Hint: his last name is Sault.)

But having said that, Sault is not Peppers. There’s a major character in the book, Freddie Gladstone, who is the punter’s best friend and the son of the team’s owner. I initially patterned Freddie, not in circumstance but in spirit, on a friend. This friend has since read the book without knowing this character began as a re-imagined version of him—nor should he have. Characters evolve greatly as they are written.

MARK: Let’s talk about J.C. and the victim, Samuel. They’re opposite ends of the spectrum. You’ve got the flashy, cocky, club running, money-blowing superstar, and the rookie Bible belt kid who’s vicious on the field. What’s your take on what football, the limelight, and money does to players. Do NFL teams work with kids like Samuel to get them ready for the money, the fame? Is it enough?
The NFL holds symposiums for rookies where former players who have blown through millions, been ripped off by trusted advisers, or had their career derailed by drugs tell their cautionary tales. But even 22-year-olds who know history are still going to repeat it, especially when they have been told for much of their lives that they are superior beings and then are given comically large piles of money. Mistakes will be made.

MARK: There’s a theme running through the novel concerning what happens to players when their time runs out. Samuel ruins 11 quarterback careers between high school and college. Gallow’s always thinking he’s going to be cut. J.C. is 31 and feeling his age. Talk about that.

BILL: In the course of writing this book I talked to Sean Landeta, who punted in the NFL from 1985 to 2005, and was the named the punter on the NFL’s 1990s All-Decade team. He told me that every year he came into training camp believing he might be cut. I’ve read that Tom Brady feels the same way, which sounds insane when you consider that Brady is a top-five all-time quarterback. It’s fascinating, this insecurity that it’s all about to end.

While some players continue to achieve in other fields after leaving football, many don’t. Recently Sebastian Junger wrote in Vanity Fair about an under-regarded aspect of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is that when soldiers leave the Army, they go from being surrounded by others all the time to being either more alone or completely alone. Looking at the broad history of human existence, we are not all that far removed from tribal living, so being cut off from the tribe can be a major shock for soldiers. I would have to believe this applies to football players too, especially if they do not move on to another workplace.

MARK: At one point in the book, Gallow says that a large percentage of people don’t even like playing football. They do it for the money, pure and simple. What does that say about the sport?

BILL: It says, simply, that aren’t many other jobs where the average worker makes two million dollars a year.

MARK: There are serious mental consequences to playing football, not the least of which are concussions. Is the league doing enough to help these guys?

BILL: When the NFL settles a class-action lawsuit with its former players for $765 million and the common analysis is that the league got a bargain, it suggests that the league didn’t react to the science about brain injuries as quickly as it should have. The league has since stepped up, with penalties that discourage head shots and protocols that prevent concussed players from returning to games. But head injuries will always be a part of a game in which athletes who are big and fast and strong hit each other with all their might.

Mark Sullivan

MARK: Where does the Nick Gallow series go from here?

BILL: HANGMAN’S GAME takes place during the off-season, with players only convening for a three-day minicamp. I am planning a second book that takes place training camp. In my fantasies I would like to write enough Nick Gallow stories to cover an entire season. It would be the craziest season ever, but that’s okay.

MARK: Who do you like in the Super Bowl this year?

BILL: Predictions call for the illusion of certainty. So I’m telling you here and now, bet the house on this one:

Packers over Ravens. Furthermore, the Packers will cover the spread, and I would also bet the over.

Mark Sullivan is the author of Robin Monarch Thrillers and co-writer of several bestsellers along with James Patterson. He is an Edgar finalist and resides in Montana with his family.

Bill Syken spent eight years as a staff reporter and editor at Sports Illustrated, where he continues to work as a writer and editor for its books division. Syken rings a decade of experience in sports journalism to his fiction debut, HANGMAN’S GAME a masterfully plotted mystery set in the world of pro football.

Note from Allison: My son Luke predicts a Super Bowl between the Packers and the Colts or Steelers. Just saying. All I know is my Raiders don’t have a chance in the next 3-5 years … sadly. But I’ll always have the Giants … baseball, that is 😉

On another note, as I was reading up about Bill and his debut mystery, I came across this fantastic review — a starred review from Booklist:

Author Syken, a veteran Sports Illustrated editor, nails the pro-football milieu. His mystery is also spot-on. He engages a moody, lonely protagonist in a very complex mystery in which nothing is as it seems, at least until the conclusion, when Gallow and the reader can see it very clearly in the rearview mirror. This is the very best sports-themed mystery in years and a robust debut novel. Don’t miss it!

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Bio:

Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly three dozen romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband, five children, and assorted pets.